The Connection Between Forgiveness and Anger
"To be angry is not always an evil." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II)
Forgiveness is a necessary virtue, and most of us have heard about the impact forgiveness can have on our lives. It’s essential to our spiritual growth and crucial to our emotional development. Yet what happens when we can’t forgive, or don’t want to?
Often we have forgiven someone, yet we don’t recognize what true forgiveness looks like.
It’s not uncommon for people to believe that to forgive means a lack of emotion; we no longer feel any traces of hurt, anxiety, or a lack of safety. If we’ve forgiven the wrongs incurred against us, then all shall be well. Our emotions should no longer pop up to trigger or warn us. If they do, we lack forgiveness.
Yet nothing is further from the truth.
The adage “forgive and forget” is wrong—and harmful. It can lead to a false sense of forgiveness, and it can foster the idea that we’re obligated to forgive or else we won’t be virtuous. It can also lead to premature forgiveness—a form of suppression that masks unresolved pain and distances us from our true feelings. The idea that forgiving means forgetting the wrongs perpetrated against us also leads to trauma minimization, which leaves us wide open for further manipulation and gaslighting by those who may take advantage of our good nature.
We don’t forget the wrongs done to us, as if our minds become a blank slate reminiscent of dementia or amnesia. Yet when we truly forgive from the heart, those wrongs no longer have the ability to further wound us through resentment, anxiety or obsessive thought patterns. Instead, the harm is transformed into grace—the grace to live a life released from the drive to seek recompense or revenge.
Forgiveness is a grace given to us, regardless of whether the person we’re forgiving participates. God grants us the ability to forgive so we may live more fully in Him rather than dwelling on the past pains caused by another.
